Think Dirty was a project born out of a personal passion to find out the truth in the beauty industry. I was compelled to think about it as a result of severe allergic reactions to some beauty products. It wasn’t until I stumbled across Annie Leonard’s, “Story of Cosmetics,” which examined the wide-spread use of toxic chemicals in the beauty industry, that I discovered the causes—phthalates, common in synthetic fragrances, which were likely triggering my reactions, and making them worse the longer I used products from the line. Appalled by the thought of using serious chemicals on my skin, I began doing my own research.

My mom was also diagnosed twice with breast cancer, so I wanted to learn more about products and their contents. I learned that serious chemicals were incredibly common in mainstream beauty products. Even worse, these chemicals were showing up in products labeled “natural” and “organic.” I created Think Dirty, an app that quickly scans a product’s barcode and determines how safe it is to use based on a “dirty” meter - 0 being the safest products, 10 the most questionable.

Since 2007 the share of college students majoring in the arts has fallen by 45%, in favour of more business-y degrees like engineering and math. As a tech founder, do you find this an alarming statistic?

I also observe a similar trend that fewer arts major starting co. The world is missing out having creative people to start companies. Personally, I would like to see a more diverse perspective in the tech startup scene. Engineering perspective is valuable, at the same time tech is attempting to solve a lot of societal problems currently. Those issues need standpoint from policymakers, sociologist, psychologists, social workers, etc. Missing that valuable perspective might lead to our oversights of having the tech to amplify problems. Especially related to AI and machine learning. When robots are looking up to us for solutions, how can we ensure our biases are not being learnt from robots to perpetuate the problems.

I don’t agree and since Facebook got hacked, this example shows us that motto is not working. The opposite should be a more thoughtful approach to starting companies and think about the consequences of their product and services. Few examples have shown us move fast and break things is a bad idea. Especially in light of the Facebook hack that impacts over 50 million users’ account and data got breached. Another recent example I could think of showing the lack of foresight on the unintended consequences of some to these startups, Bodega which aimed to disrupt the corner stores currently ran mostly by immigrants. Our obsession with disruption allows us little room to think about if there are specific industries need disruptions.

Juicero is another startup comes to mind. When it comes to juice, maybe we don’t need a wifi machine to press a bag of fruits. While our bare hands will do the job.

Another interesting thought is to think of most solutions come out of silicon valley with an even more critical eye. Most answers from tech might not be equipped to solve societal problems. Here’s an interesting piece on the common topic of universal basic income.